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Tonight they're going to party like it's 1969.

That's the way The Rolling Stones roll. And judging from the epic show they put on at Newark's Prudential Center Thursday, it could be one for the record books.

That earlier Stones show, one of two at the Pru, featured guest guitarists John Mayer and Mick Taylor wailing like thousand-watt banshees. Tonight's show – the Stones' last in the area, and just possibly one of their last ever – is expected to guest-star Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga and The Black Keys.

"50 and Counting ..., " the tour that goes with the Stones' new "GRRRR!" greatest-hits compilation, is not being billed as a last waltz – and in fact the Stones have said they are planning dates for 2013. But their appearances in the area, which have included Barclays Center in Brooklyn last Saturday and a special appearance at the 12-12-12 benefit at Madison Square Garden Wednesday, do have an air of summing-up.

Part of that is reflected in the rock royalty that, in the past week, has been seen playing with – and paying tribute to — the Stones. Previously, at Barclays Center, Mary J. Blige did the honors.

Mayer, on Thursday, was not the mellow fellow of "Your Body Is a Wonderland" but a blues fiend, trading howling, shrieking guitar solos with Wood and Richards. The song was "Respectable" from "Some Girls" – one of the few deviations from a set list that was nearly identical to the one the Stones played last Saturday at Barclays.

Ex-Stone Taylor, for his part, took turns with Richards, shredding up "Midnight Rambler" in spectacular fashion.

Even two and a half hours doesn't give the Stones time to cover all the bases, and we're still waiting for "Dead Flowers," "Time Is on My Side" and "Ruby Tuesday," to name a few. But they still managed, on Thursday, to take a bite out of a pretty astounding song catalog. Out came hit after hit: "Satisfaction," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Sympathy for the Devil," "Gimme Shelter," "Wild Horses" – each one individually gift-wrapped, as it were, with a bit of memorable playing here, a bit of visual razzle-dazzle there.

For "You Can't Always Get What You Want," there was a 20-voice choir. For "Gimme Shelter," Jagger traded over-the-top gospel vocals with Lisa Fisher. For "Honky Tonk Women," there was a terrific King-Kong-in-reverse cartoon – the giant atop the skyscraper is a buxom lady, being shot at by apes in biplanes. And the whole show begins with a bang, literally – a line of drummers, in ape masks, marching thunderously through the audience.

What else? Beyond great music, and great showmanship, the Stones offer something more — something that may be key to their staying power, 50 years later.

They offer excess – under controlled conditions.

Those lustful lips and stuck-out tongue, first adopted as a Rolling Stones logo on the 1971 "Sticky Fingers" album (this tour, they've been updated with a gorilla's face), say it all. The Rolling Stones are rock-and-roll gargoyles. They are rude, lewd and raucous, in ways that, 40 years ago, totally connected with their own lifestyles and those of the audience. "Sex, drugs and rock-and-roll" wasn't just a slogan then; it was what both the Stones and their audience actually did — and to extremes.

Today, of course, it's all a wistful memory. Most of the audience, paying $114 and up for Stones tickets, has jobs. As for the Stones, those anti-establishment pied pipers of 1969's Altamont concert, they are themselves a mammoth entertainment franchise, a corporation — with Jagger, Richards, Wood and Charlie Watts as the elderly CEOs who hang on because there's no one else to run the company.

Which is why, these days, they're so precious. They conjure up a 1960s bacchanal — for those of us too young or timid to have experienced it firsthand.